Brothers Or Something Of The Sort
by Suulsa-Krii and Huntress
Summary: Written in what we hope to be Adams-like style. This story's like the prequel to Hitch Hiker's. What were Ford and Zaphod like as kids? As teens? As novice adventurers? What's a Hrung and why did it choose to collapse on Beatleguise 7?
1. The Collapsing Hrung Disaster

Disclaimer: We are not now, nor have we ever been Douglas Adams. We do not claim to own these characters. We're not even close. Not even British, and we don't know how to que. This is only our theory of what happened, given the characters' references to their own and each other's past and a lot of really obscure HG2G trivia. We most certainly do not claim to be right about it.

A/N: Hey now. My sister and I are working on this thing, together surprisingly. Zaphod's my favorite, Ix (Ford) is her's. This is her first fanfic and my first HG2G fanfic. I can only say one thing about that: our lives are largely based on the concept that it seemed like a good idea at the time. This is no different. We are in no way trying to make fun of or parody HG2G (is that even possible?), we're just paying homage to Douglas Adams, who, by the way, isn't dead: he just hitched a ride on a passing spaceship and went home. ;-)

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Chapter 1 (The Collapsing Hrung Disaster)

Doorbells do not detonate in the usual sense of the word. The function of a doorbell is to be pressed to inform non-telepathic beings that there's another non-telepathic being standing outside the door and really hoping that the first non-telepathic being will open it. They really aren't meant to cause disasters of any kind (outside of admitting unwanted guests) which is why you don't often see doorbells made from C4, uranium, plutonium, or the spit of the Bendofian Ultra-camel.

Doorbells simply don't detonate. That's one of those small little rules that make the universe seem to make sense when it's really a massively big place that makes no sense whatsoever. And that's all there is to say about it. Doorbells do not detonate.

Usually.

The problem really arises when the doorbell is located in the Plural Z sector, which seems to exist for the sole purpose of breaking all those small little rules that seem to make the universe make sense and expose it for the great disorganized mass of stuff that it is. The particular doorbell in question is, unfortunately for a small planet in the near vicinity of Beatleguise, in the Plural Z sector. More specifically, ZZ Plural Z Alpha. Still more specifically, the front door of a modest, if not particularly nice, house in Islington where the ape-descended owner of the house is no where near even considering the smallest possibility of almost suspecting that the apparently innocent doorbell repairman who sets off the sound was retro-actively responsible for the destruction of an entire planet.

Whether he was suspected of it or not, he was. Pushing on the doorbell, it detonated with a great horrific sound.

A great, horrific, high-pitched "HRUNG!".

The repairman nodded with what might have looked to someone who knew the truth like grim satisfaction. He looked through the open door toward the other non-telepathic ape-descendant.

"Alright, Mr. Dent, your doorbell's fixed. That'll be thirty pounds."

The money changed hands, and the man who was quite possibly the most destructive doorbell repairman in the galaxy went on his way.

The great and horrific "HRUNG!" went on it's way too.

It went backwards, upside down and sideways through the space-time continuum. It careened through light years in seconds. It went without pause back almost two centuries. It stopped for a coffee in a little eddie in the space-time continuum that was a popular rest-stop for RTCs (Randomly traveling co-incidences). It stopped at it's randomly selected destination where it was detected by one–and only one–entity on a small planet in the near vicinity of Beatleguise. Beatleguise 7, to be exact.

A tallish being with ginger-ish hair who appeared to be descended from an ape but quite certainly wasn't looked up in great distress from the computer readouts he was monitoring. The technology that had served absolutely no purpose for several decades previous to this had finally fulfilled it's missive: it had finally detected a very dangerous RTC.

Under normal circumstances the sound of a doorbell is not dangerous. But the strange thing about RTCs is that when normal things (insofar as normal things exist which isn't very) become RTCs they are magnified 42 times to the power of infinity. At that decibel level the quietest sound in the galaxy (which happens to be the rustling of the whiskers of the rabbit-like vern of Beladonn 6) becomes dangerous. When the phenomenon of RTC magnification was discovered on Beatleguise, a system was immediatly put in place to detect them. The fact that the planet was at the time standing was a testament that it hadn't detected any yet.

When the time finally came, the being working at the machinery realized it's flaw. A rather glaring flaw, now that it was in the open: the machine only detected them. There was absolutely no system in place for what to do if it did exactly that. And now there was nothing he could do about it. After trying to run in several equally useless directions, he dashed out the door of his office to make good use of the last five minutes his planet would exist.

He dashed down that hall and tore open the room where his infant son was sitting quietly on the floor with a small metallic toy. Grabbing his son, he dashed into the adjoining bathroom and grabbed a towel. No real reason that he knew of. He'd just heard that in a situation like this if you must grab something, grab a towel. He dashed for the nearest space shuttle rental and leapt in one.

"Hey!" a being who's total remaining life span had about 45 seconds left on it shouted, "Rental for that is twenty Altarian dollars a day and-"

"Don't bother, you're about to be blown up!" replied the one who knew this. He was panting after all that dashing and grabbing.

He started the engine, in complete defiance of local shuttle speed laws which were about to be forcibly repealed anyways and gunned it for the next planet out in orbit. He had relatives there.

Just behind the shuttle, there a great and horrible high pitched sound collapsed over the planet. A great, horrific "HRUNG!" collapsed over the planet and them the planet collapsed on it's self.

The being, who's name and the current name of his son are un-spell-able in this alphabet and unpronounceable in this tongue, saw this on the rear view screen of the shuttle. He sighed. This was definitely a low point in his life.

There was a tug on his pant-leg. He looked down and saw his only son, holding the towel close and holding the metallic toy. Now he could see what the toy was: a simplified toy-version of the infamous _Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy._ Children pushed a lettered button, were informed of the sound the letter made and given a sentence about something that started with the letter. For example, when S was pressed, it resulted in "Sssss. Space. Space is big."

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"Where are we going?"

"To see your cousin and his family."

"Why?"

"Because..." he sighed, "Because our home is gone. We'll have to find somewhere to stay on their planet."

"Their planet's weird."

"Don't I know it."

"I wanna go home."

"We can't."

"Why?"

"World's gone."

"Really?"

"Yes."

A significant pause, during which the boy's father got on the sub-etha and signaled his half-brother that they were about to arrive in the spaceport and why, and that his son was with him. They agreed to meet him. When he got off the sub-etha, his son looked at him again.

"So we can't go to the park?"

"Not anymore."

"Oh. Alright."

He was, thankfully, an adaptive boy.

When they got to the spaceport, the man's half-brother and his son, the boy's cousin where waiting. The adults dispensed pleasantries while the typical conversation between children ensued–typical as in barely feet from the adults' but unobserved and much more frank.

The boy's cousin was a year older and had two heads, but this was perfectly acceptable since that was exactly how many those born and raised on the planet Beatleguise 8 were supposed to have. Both the faces were scowling at the sudden and unwelcome one-headed intruder.

"What are you doing here?"

"My planet collapsed."

"Why?"

"A Hrung collapsed on it.

"What's a Hrung?"

"I don't know."

"Why'd it collapse on Beatleguise 7?"

"I don't know."

There was a slow, significant pause. The cousin's heads tilted in opposite directions. Then he firmly and decisively gave the one-headed boy a name that stuck for quite a long time:

"Ix!"

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A/N: If you don't already know, Ix means "boy who can not satisfactorily explain what a Hrung is or why it choose to collapse on Beatleguise 7".

Stay hoopy, people! Suulsa-Krii and Huntress out.


	2. Matter and AntiMatter

Disclaimer: Whatever happened, neither Suulsa-Krii nor Huntress is responsible for it.

A/N: Huntress and I are writing this on the eve of May the fourth. You may be aware that the end of the world is projected for tomorrow when the planets align. We've planned for this eventuality. We know what we're gonna do. We know when and how. _We know where our towels are._ Anyways, my point here is that I'm not sure if anyone will actually read this or if you'll all be too busy evaporating into a puff of ozone. Anyhow, we've decided to update since it was fun writing the first on the spur of the moment and because the reception of it wasn't too bad. Not too bad at all. To answer some questions...

_To everyone who pointed out the "Beatleguise"_: Why did we misspell it? Well, we didn't know how to spell it, googled it, and chose the one that looked best. Guess we were wrong.

_To ElvenPirate41:_ We (Huntress and I) talked about Zaphod's heads, and decided that he must have had some sort of personal cloaking device to go to the party, at least how Arthur tells it. Remember Zaphod's great grandfather from the little seance they had in the book? He was two-headed too. And Ford seeing Zaphod after years was surprised to see Zaphod's third arm, but his second head didn't seem so unusual. It seemed to us it would appear to be trait of his species. Also, in "Mostly Harmless", the party story's changed a bit and in Trillian's version of what happened, Zaphod was hiding his other head under a parrot cage and a cloth.

_To Scanner-Cat-Scat:_ We talked about time lines too. It was decided that we'd have a minor little AU (should be one of incredibly few in our fic. We're not foreseeing anymore) in order to keep the particular sort of conflict shown in this chapter a bit more plausible. (i.e. the pseudo-sibling rivalry between Zaphod and Ix being based on the fact that Zaphod used to be the youngest in the family and an only child and so spoiled rotten by everyone around him until Ix appeared out of the blue from some other planet and started taking up people's time and attention).

Don't worry froody people...there's method to our madness! Hoo-boy that was a long A/N...on to the story!

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Chapter 2 ("Matter/Anti-Matter")

There are many theories regarding the behavior of opposites. Unfortunately, no one agrees on which one actually works. The main problem with that is that in what is supposedly a structured universe there cannot be two ways a thing can act in a single situation. For a law to be true, it must be universally applicable.

This makes opposites such continually complex ideas that they must be first introduced at the earliest point in education.

The two main governing theories are that opposite forces attract and the other is that birds of a feather do the same thing as the opposite forces. All the people in the second group are telling the first group, "But what about matter and anti-matter? Mix an ounce of those together and you get an explosion like 300 pounds of dynamite (Or like five pounds of the saliva of a Bendofian Ultra-Camel). Those don't attract. I'd even say massive explosions are rather _un_attractive." to which the first group retorts "But what about two positively charged ions? Good luck getting them to flock together. And what's all this rubbish about birds?"

One of the most interesting things about interactions on the infinitesimal level is how they mirror interactions on the personal level. When two beings with clashing personalities are placed in a room, it can never be quite predicted if they'll subscribe to the first or second theory.

The introduction between Ix and his cousin Zaphod looked like matter and anti-matter getting to know one another personally. The first trouble came the very day they met. From the spaceport, they went to the house where Zaphod lived with his parents and that was it. He had no siblings. He had reams of cousins, but he was by a considerable bit the youngest, or had been until Ix showed up. Ix was about four going on five and Zaphod five going on six.

The first thing Zaphod did when it was made clear that Ix was staying on the planet and probably in the neighborhood was show him around his room.

"You see this, Ix?"

"My name's not Ix!"

"What is your name, then?"

Ix tried to tell Zaphod his original Betelguesian name, stuttered, hesitated and trailed off. It was a complex language and it was relatively common for children not to get the hang of their names for several years after they started figuring out how to say everything else.

"Ix it is, then." Zaphod said, sounding very conclusive on the point.

"But my name's not–"

"You see this bed?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's _my_ bed. See this chair?"

"Yes."

"It's mine too. And see the rug? And the pictures on the walls? And drawing stuff? And all the toy boxes? And everything in them? And the game-computer? And the mini Tri-D? Those are all mine too."

Ix goggled.

His father (he had no memory of his mother) had made a living monitoring a computer that only done anything once and then exploded with the rest of the planet. The pay had been on the lower side of modest and so they'd lived in a smaller house without nearly so much stuff in the whole thing never mind in his bedroom. They'd been the only branch of their family living on that planet and hadn't had the same privilege Zaphod had. Namely, he hadn't been the youngest in a wealthy, localized extended family, having about eight of ten aunts and uncles and a number of cousins only a corporate accountant for the legendary Magrathea could calculate all living in the area, all of whom were quite older than him. This had resulted in Zaphod getting all the advantages of being the youngest in a family, but multiplied exponentially. In short, the young Zaphod had been given new toys several times a week, taken to exciting places, been given pretty much everything he asked for, had never been forced to eat his vegetables, and been constantly told what a great boy he was (his father had sometimes raised concerns that all the attention might have a negative effect on the boy's personality when he was older, but never did anything about it). In even shorter, Zaphod was a touch spoiled.

Ix reached out a careful hand to Zaphod's computer.

"Can I play..?"

Zaphod pulled Ix's hand back. Zaphod was also a touch greedy.

"No, it's mine! I just told you that...guess two ears isn't enough to hear well."

Ix looked around again and smiled, spotting a small metallic toy on the table beside Zaphod's drawing things.

"I have one of those!"

He picked up a toy _Guide_ off the table and started looking at it. Zaphod took it back.

"Well, mine's better! Besides, I have two."

"How is it better? They're the same..."

"Because one's mine."

"Oh..."

By the time Ix and his father had found their own place to stay several days later, the relationship had only gotten worse.

The problem was that Ix and Zaphod were different. Zaphod always loved to interact with people, especially if they were telling him how great he was, Ix sometimes liked some alone time. Zaphod was loud and energetic, Ix was a comparatively quiet boy. Zaphod had been quite a few places for his age, Ix had been to a total of two planets including the one that blew up. Zaphod wasn't always in trouble but would have been if the rules had applied to him in his family. Ix got into trouble, but a lot of it was Zaphod's fault.

But a really large part of it was that Zaphod was competitive, largely because he didn't often lose. But with Ix's appearance, he felt he was losing some ground. Not only was Ix younger than he was but also was getting all the attention just because his bloody planet blew up.

Outside of the conditions under which they met, Zaphod had nothing against Ix.

So it was nothing personal when he went to Ix one day and said, "Do you want to play a game?"

"Alright!" Ix readily had replied, hoping he would get to play with one of his cousin's exciting toys.

"Great. We're going to play with this." Zaphod pushed a large cardboard box he'd been dragging over to Ix.

Ix looked disappointed.

"But I thought.--"

"Nope."

"Couldn't we--"

"No we couldn't."

"But it's--"

"No it isn't."

"Okay." Ix sighed. "What are we playing?"

"Just get in the box."

"In the box?"

"Yeah. And I close it and–"

"I don't want you to shut me in a box!"

"But that's just half the game! Then I write something on the box and move it, and you have to try and guess what I wrote and where I put the box without getting out."

Ix was suspicious. But agreed.

Had the rules applied to Zaphod, he would have gotten in trouble for putting his cousin/brother in a box, writing "To: Squornshellous Zeta. Contents: One Mattress (not Ix)" on it, sealing it shut, and putting it out for the postman to find.

Another, but less dialogue-intensive incident involved Zaphod's trying to sell Ix on a street corner.

The turning point came quite some time after this. It was just over a year later and Ix was almost done being five (phrased to spare you from unnecessary rhyming) and Zaphod almost seven. His attempts to get rid of Ix had not subsided, though they hadn't increased: there is a certain ceiling level on everything, even on "sibling" rivalry and they were at it.

Zaphod tried to take Ix into the woods and accidentally lose him, allowing the younger boy to be raised by a herd of wandering nensels– rather like deer, but taller and with green skin under their fur. (No one's quite sure why this is, but some scientists who supposedly study this sort of thing claim it's so the nensels can perform photosynthesis when food is short and as a trick to entertain other animals at parties.) And besides: a visit to the "haunted" house in the woods sounded like a good idea on that day.

The woods fan for quite a ways around a single house a ways from Zaphod's and quite a ways from where Ix and his father were living. After the woods, there was a rather imposing drop. Most of the local children considered this house, in the middle of nowhere compared to the ones around it, to be haunted, or at least inhabited by a madman. But then this is a natural assumption given a house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees with a sheer drop in the back yard.

The one who lived in this house was in no way violent at all, actually, and was one of the best confectioners in the galaxy of lightly sugared Betelgeusian Wood-Boring Grub, which is fist-sized, unpleasantly wet, and possessed of transparent skin that allows one to see all the profoundly unappetizing inner workings of the insect. They taste vaguely like Vaseline and toothpaste. Chewing on a lightly sugared one is not unlike chewing on an elastic band that had been coated in shampoo and Listerine.

"Come on, Ix, it'll be fun! Don't you wanna see the haunted woods?"

"No. Not really."

"Sure you do! Come."

Zaphod led Ix down a disused driveway and into the tall grasses. It was winter, but there was no snow, and all the grasses and thick brambles were grey and lifeless. Zaphod was wearing a brownish coat and dark green clothes, planning on blending in with the plant life. He had, of coarse, neglected to inform Ix of the plan, and let Ix wear his usual: red something and blue something else. In this case, red shirt and blue pants. He stuck out like a hyena in a small-town postoffice.

Dead plants crackled and complained under the weight of their foot prints, though being so young the weight was rather insignificant. The debris was just bad-tempered and looking for something to complain about. The close brambles and grasses gave way to squelching marshes of wet leaves. The edge of the cliff was coming into sight. So was the grub-sugarer's house.

It was average, if slightly dilapidated, for a house on Betelgeuse. It was greyish on the outside, and had some windows with reinforced glass and a door that opened by splitting down the middle and sliding open to either side. It was tapered on the ends and around the sides and on the whole looked a bit like a throat lozenge, except flat on one side. The house was surrounded by some flat, mowed grass. Ix and Zaphod went wide around the open lawn and skulked through the woods and mud to the unfenced backyard.

"Why do we want to do this Zaphod?"

Zaphod shrugged.

"Dunno. Seems like fun. Besides, wouldn't it be cool to see what's in the backyard of this place?"

"Uh..."

"Yes. Yes, the answer's yes."

"Oh. Alright."

They slunk around until they were hiding in a ditch with the drop to their backs and the back of the house to the front. Zaphod got ready to bolt through the woods, leaving Ix lost in the brambles and woods and swamp and in the back of a supposedly haunted house. He lunged his weight forward to run in an unexpected direction then stumbled, tripping hurridly back into the briar-ditch.

The one they didn't know cooked grubs stepped out of the house carrying an axe. (If you're reading this on earth, it's probably not the axe you're thibking of. None of that mucking about with cumbersome wooden handles and heavy iron heads. These axes were had visible-energy heads with light alloy handles. It was much easier to heft and chop with and was able to fulfill all the possible uses anyone might care to put it to.) He was less then fifty meters in front of them, and for the moment couldn't see them. Ix and Zaphod gasped. If they moved the man with an axe (though he was harmless, they didn't know that and it doesn't matter what planet their from, children's imaginations run even faster than their owners).

The man with the axe gathered a large pile of wood. If they wanted to try and risk waiting and hoping they weren't discovered, they'd be there until after nightfall. And days on Betelgeuse were pretty long. For a moment, it looked like they wouldn't have to worry about it: it looked like he was going to look at the ditch and discover them.

"No, no, don't look." Zaphod muttered. "Nothing here but us nensels, and we're over there somewhere."

"Sway-oo, sway-oo." added Ix quietly, imitating a nensel. He was smiling. Actually seemed to be enjoying himself. Showing a bit of a taste for excitement.

There was only one thing for it: they had to bolt. And, Zaphod hoped, leave Ix in the lurch. Suddenly, Ix spoke up.

"I'll run out and distract him, you run on past me. Then you distract him and I'll run past you, and then you run past me again. We keep doing that until we get all the way across the field and back into the thick woods."

Zaphod nodded. He had to admit. It was a good plan.

Ix dashed out, waving his arms and shouting.

"Your sweater is on fire!"

Zaphod saw his opportunity and shot out past him, kept running. He was going to keep running and just leave him, but stopped. Zaphod had never had a very strong conscience. But sometimes it acted up. He hated it because it usually spoiled his fun, but it did. And it was doing it then. He stopped, shouting loud enough to get the axe man's attention as Ix ran like hell past him.

"I am slowly becoming a mattress!"

And he ran as Ix began to shout.

"Is that your hair or are you wearing a bird's nest!"

And Ix ran.

"Were you soiled by an Arcturian Megadonkey!"

And Zaphod ran.

"I've met bugs smarter than you!"

And Ix.

"They're nicer to look at too!"

They'd made it across the field, leaving in their wake a perfectly harmless and extremely confused grub confectioner. He shook his head and went back to cutting wood. Not that he had any archaic wood-burning devices. He just liked cutting wood.

Some time later, Ix and Zaphod arrived at Zaphod's house. Zaphod was deciding on whether or not he would continue his efforts to get rid of Ix and decided that, no, perhaps he wouldn't. Ix had been useful back there, and he clearly knew how to have fun.

Zaphod decided he could use someone who could be almost as damned fun as he was.

"Hey, Ix. Wanna come up to my room? We can watch some Tri-D or play on my computer or something."

Ix smiled, rather broadly.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Let's go before I change my mind."

The two thumped upstairs making a sound like a herd of Arcturan Mega-horses. They watched some Tri-D. They played a new game on Zaphod's game-computer. Ix won. Zaphod grumbled about it, then forgave him.

They'll probably never act like magnetism. But that's okay: a little "sibling" rivalry can keep things interesting. Agreeing can be down right dull at times.

At least they weren't matter and anti-matter anymore.

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A/N: Well, that's the end of chapter two. Little time-jump in the middle there, not bad. Bigger time-jump in the next chapter. Personally, I liked the first chapter better. I think this one might be a touch boring. Our point was to introduce Zaphod as a character (and why such an ego when he grows up), Ix more-so and introduce the root of why they spend so much of our fic arguing about things.

Anyways, stay hoopy, all you cool froods! ;) Suulsa-Krii and Huntress out.


	3. A Frood In Need Is A Frood Indeed

Disclaimer: Huntress and Suulsa-Krii own nothing. They have access to all five books, Huntress has a satchel like Ford's, and Suulsa-Krii still has her ticket stub from going to see the movie a few weeks ago. Suulsa-Krii and Huntress both own their own towels with neat H2G2 logos and Zaphod (for Suulsa-Krii) and Ford (for Huntress) logos on them. And that's it. They own the rights to exactly...absolutely nothing. Not even.

A/N: I'd like to say I'm happy to report the world's still here, but I'm not sure I am. Like was mentioned in the ch.2 A/N, Huntress and I really knew where our towels were. We were ready. We had this really, huge, seriously brilliant escape plan and didn't get to use it...and it would have been so much more fun than what actually happened, which would be nothing. No end-of-the-world. No sudden explosion. Not even an unexpected bottle rocket going off.

Anyways, so we know we're evil. Compared to chapter two, chapter three has been centuries in coming. Huntress and I were just having a little tiff about something stupid. But we're good now. I did not attempt to sell her, lose her in the woods, or seal her in a box. (Although I once locked her in a suitcase, it was because I wanted to see if she fit and it was eight years ago. She still holds it against me, though.)

To everyone who has reviewed: Thank you so much. You're all so bright, the light you give off could illuminate a small municipality. You're so seriously brilliant, I want you accept this complimentary sausage I present you to eat while you enjoy the chapter which will be starting presently:

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Chapter 3 (A Frood In Need Is A Frood Indeed)

Around Betelgeuse 8, a small moon orbited at a formally respectful distance like it was considering if it had known the planet below long enough not to be considered rude if it asked the planet a particularly personal question. The small moon was where the concert was actually going to be, though all the fans would be on the planet's surface. Well, not quite so much on the surface as in a cement bunker full of display screens under the surface while the noise came in through several meters of dirt and cement from speakers that lay face down and were the only component of the system actually on the surface. The fans still left at the end mostly deaf.

This was standard operating procedure for hosting a concert by Disaster Area.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy has this to say on the subject of Hotblack Desiato and Disaster Area:_

"_Loud."_

_After beginning exactly that way, it goes into a little more depth:_

"_Very loud._

_Very, very loud._

_Really, very, very loud._

_Anyone who values their ear drums, however many they may have, is not advised to ever attend a Disaster Area concert. The effect on a typical being's ear drums has been observed to be extreme. Most commonly, the small bones that comprise it intentionally shattering one another in order to prevent the brain from being turned into an unpleasantly gooey grey slurry-like substance. Other observed effects include the ear drums jumping ship--well, ear, actually--and simply running off, or, rarely, legally divorcing the rest of the ear and moving out the following day, splitting the contents of the ear--hair, wax, Babel Fish, etc.--two ways. This has lead to the popular urban legend of the Planet Of The Lost Ear Drums, a world where the population consists entirely of people's ear drums lost in Disaster Area concerts. The concept of coarse if ridiculous: how could a lot of tiny bones hitch a lift this so-called planet?_

_The star of Disaster Area is one Hotblack Desiato. If you really needed to be told that, you ought to be fed to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal. If you still don't know who he is, you deserve to be slathered in steak sauce, stripped of your clothing and towel, and **then** fed to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal. Like all rockers, Hotblack started small and quickly exploded like several suns going supernova, which is an effect Disaster Area often uses in their shows. He started young too, still in high school–about seventeen when he and the band went to cause major tidal shifts on several important planets. It's said that during one of these first and reputedly loudest concerts, the sound vibrations rocketing down from the moon where they were playing had already broken 408 people's bones, damaged planet-wide surveillance satellites and absolutely shattered the magnificent Crystal Palace of Duhbivon V (the sound was aimed at Duhbivon IV) before anyone realized that the band were doing it themselves from the moon: the mikes and all the sound equipment of the surface of Duhbivon IV were all unplugged._

_Loud._

_Very loud._

_Very, very ,loud._

_Really very, very loud."_

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Zaphod and Ix loved loud music.

When Zaphod was just under thirteen and Ix just over twelve, Hotblack Desiato and Disaster Area–though they weren't quite "big" yet--were playing their first concert for Betelgeuse 8. Zaphod's parents had bought him and Ix tickets to go to the cement bunker full of screens to see and hear as much of the concert as was non-fatal, almost completely, if not entirely, just because Zaphod had wanted the tickets and asked for them.

Disaster Area's star-limo was scheduled to land on the planet's surface to bring the band to sign autographs, do media appearances and sample the girls who passed for the local Disaster Area groupies.

The band hadn't showed yet, though, even just to sign autographs, and two boys on their day off school were getting impatient. Two boys who had been born as something along the lines of cousins and been raised as brothers although not quite. Two boys who's combined headcount totaled three.

"Zaphod, I'm telling you. Not gonna work."

One head turned to look at and speak with Ix. The other continued watching the docking entrances of the long, tubular mainway of the spaceport, which was shaped rather like a massive sausage with all the exits leading off elsewhere.

"It'll be fine. Complete and totally fine. Just be cool, dude, be cool."

Ix sat on the hard bench they were on quietly for a moment. He was trying to be cool, which was very difficult when one is getting a sore bottom. He fidgeted and adjusted his backpack. It wasn't a school day, but he still wore his backpack on weekends. He just changed the stuff that was in it to be stuff that was useful on weekends. The one item that didn't change was the towel. He'd always thought hitch hikers were pretty neat, probably starting when he had the toy Guide as a little kid. The towel was the one his Dad had thought would have been an excellent present to give Ix for his seventh birthday several years ago, and it apparently was. He'd found it good to have around. Zaphod, seeing how convenient Ix's towel had been and not liking one bit the idea of Ix having anything he didn't have, filched a towel from a bathroom next time he'd stayed at a hotel while traveling with his parents. However, he made Ix carry it for him, stuffed in that backpack of his.

Showing up first to wait for Hotblack Desiato's star limo to show up so they'd be the first to meet him was what Zaphod thought was best idea he ever had. Zaphod thought _all_ his ideas are the best he ever had. Ix had thought it was a good idea, but Zaphod had not specified the amount of waiting, of which there was a great deal. It was starting to look like one of the worst best ideas Zaphod had ever had.

"But I'm hungry...and bored...and tired...and going to fail physics again if I don't write that report..."

"Sucks to physics!"

"And that's why you'll fail too."

Zaphod and Ix wouldn't normally be in the same year of school, but Zaphod had failed the first grade the first time he took it because he wanted to do all the activities his way. And if that means making dot pictures on his work instead of trying to fill in the correct answer circles for the teaching computer to assess, then that was just the way it was going to be. He was also rather a disruption in class, making Ix's grades suffer (Ix had always sat in the work station behind him). Ix, for his part, was starting to worry his father: through lack of practice and exposure, he was developing a heavy speech impediment. Not one you could detect, however, unless you knew what the language of his native Betelgeuse 7 was _supposed_ to sound like. He was, much to his father's shame, unable even to pronounce his own name. The nickname had stuck long enough that Ix was perfectly content to say that his name was indeed Ix.

It had taken some all-star level waiting, but a star limo eventually pulled into the spaceport. It was long and black with steely-blue frosted windows in the side. It seemed to Ix and Zaphod (Ix more than Zaphod) to be very large though it wasn't markedly larger than any other spaceship. Neither of them questioned who was in it.

One should always question everything, especially since the universe has absolutely no incentive to make any real sense at all and it's always perfectly possible that it's having you on and only pretending to make sense so it can laugh at you. Question everything and you will, with a bit of luck, avoid some of the mocking of the universe.

The universe was laughing so hysterically at Ix and Zaphod that several suns went supernova.

By a cosmically meaningless co-incidence, one of the suns that went supernova was one orbited by a totally nondescript, rocky world on which resided a totally nondescript roughly humanoid species. They were perfectly nice folks to be around, friendly, always had an Altarian dollar or two to spare for a friend and were one of the best races in the galaxy at taking a joke. In fact, by another wholly meaningless co-incidence, one of this totally nondescript roughly humanoid species had just said to another: "Hey, Qzicajaktyl! Pull my finger!". Just after which, the planet promptly exploded.

When the star limo door opened, there was the usual bustle that surrounded a mind-bogglingly important enough a person to own a star-limo doing something as mind-bogglingly important as get out of one. Ix and Zaphod were now more than sure they were correct. Another sun or two went supernova.

Zaphod and Ix were both of a relatively slight build. Easily lost in a crowd of adults. Zaphod tilted his heads in opposite directions. Ix cringed. He'd been around his cousin long enough to know that when his heads tilt in that particular way, he was getting another best idea he'd ever had. Good rarely came of those, and Ix usually ended up taking the blame while Zaphod got off with a half-hearted "You know better. Don't do it again."

Zaphod grabbed hold of the collar of Ix's shirt and with the excited, but slightly reluctant, Ix in tow, he plunged into the crowd.

When the crowd dispersed, the important personage had left the limo to do what he was there to do, Ix found himself standing in the entry way of the star-limo.

"Zaphod?"

"Huh?"

"I dunno how to tell you this, but we appear to be in the entry way of the star-limo."

"No kidding. I had no idea. Tell me more." Zaphod said sarcastically.

Ix looked at him oddly.

"You really hadn't noticed?"

Zaphod sighed. Ix had adopted the name people called him by on Betelgeuse 8, but retained the inability to recognize or employ sarcasm that characterized the denizens Betelgeuse 7 (or had when there had been a Betelgeuse 7 to have denizens to be characterized).

"Of coarse I noticed! That was the whole plan!"

"Was it."

"Yes!"

"Sure."

"No, seriously! It was!"

"I believe you." Ix said in a tone that screamed that he didn't. It was the closest he ever came to sarcasm.

"Oh, sod off."

"No, thank you. So what was this huge master plan of yours that involved getting us locked inside a spaceship?"

"Star-limo."

"Whatever."

"Alright. So, there's no way off a planet except by a ship, right?"

"Well..." Ix thought this over.

"Yeah, you could build the galaxy's largest catapult and launch yourself out there, but I don't think they will."

"Yeah, the chances are pretty slim."

"Right. So Disaster Area eventually will come back to the star-limo, right? And once Hotblack gets in, there'll be no crowds to compete with for his attention, right? He'll have to talk to us! All we have to do is wait here for him to come back."

"Sounds logical enough."

However, nothing that sounds logical is, as a general sort of rule insofar as there are rules which isn't very, not true by the most basic fact that it _is_ logical. When making plans and decisions, the more large-scale it is, the more you should remember that the universe is not logical and logic cannot therefore be forced upon it. It's like your logic is a balloon and the universe is a cosmically big porcupine. Now, imagine forcing a balloon on a porcupine. The balloon just gets blown to smithereens and the porcupine is left standing triumphant in its apathy. Trying to apply logic to the universe is much the same, except instead of starting with a balloon and a porcupine and ending with a porcupine and little bits of decimated balloon, you start with a logical idea and a universe and end with a universe and little bits of decimated logic strewn about.

Zaphod's idea, unfortunately, called for a nice, logical, predictable universe and we simply haven't got one.

The star-limo did not belong to Hotblack Desiato and had nothing whatsoever to do with Disaster Area. The owner of the star-limo had earned enough money to finance and warrant his ownership of it by making career out of being a complete and total jerk. An utter git. It happened to be very profitable.

His name was Vendreevold and he was from Glisecon II. He was unremarkable for his species, meaning he was a tall life form, very roughly humanoid (as in, he was bipedal, but with more arms than the human wont, totaling four) with greyish skin due to the fact that he was silicon based. Being silicon based meant that his race had an unspoken rapport with computers–one silicon creature to another–which they often took advantage of to get free unlimited access to the sub-etha net. Vendreevold was engaged in that activity once when he accidentally stumbled across a detailed description of common laws held on many major planets. An obnoxious revelation came to him in a blinding flash: the way to fame, wealth, and power was through legal loopholes. So he quit his job as a computer keyboard sanitizer and embarked on a career as a public irritant. He traveled to distant planets bringing little known and unenforced laws to the attention of the government, forcing massive changes in the entire layouts of civilizations, netting him several hundred thousand Altarian dollars in fees as a "political researcher" (a title he'd invented for himself just for the occasion), which he used to finance his campaign to make it mandatory for all avian creatures over six feet to wear bowling shoes, and now every time an Arcturan Mega-ostrich or some such is shod, he must be payed royalties. The biggest prizes came from the most poorly organized of any known bureaucracy: the Galactic Patent Office. Vendreevold had managed to procure patents, and therefore royalties, on several inventions that no civilization could ever survive without, such as fire, the wheel, crop rotation, interplanetary travel, and the circulation of anything with any sort of resemblance to blood. This meant that many planets now imposed a "Vendreevold tax" in order to come up with the money for all the royalties they had to pay him every year.

The star-limo belonged to Vendreevold, who was on Betelgeuse 8 trying to obtain the rights to a patent on the spoken word. But Ix and Zaphod didn't know that. As far as they knew, the ship was empty and waiting for Hotblack Desiato and Disaster Area to return to it. Which is why they almost jumped out of their respective skins when a hand was laid on both their shoulders.

"Hey! Whoa! Chill out, it's all hoopy. I'm not gonna hurt you."

Ix and Zaphod turned around to look the person in the face. The person was young, perhaps mid twenties, humanoid, dark haired, male, and rumpled-looking. He had a grey shirt, green pants, and a dark red towel slung casually around his neck like a scarf. He had a sort of pack with him, an almost-satchel, open a bit, from inside which at least three metal objects glinted. He had a resourceful, irresponsible, mild to moderately dishonest, no-fixed-address air about him and was really very disheveled. Like he'd been sleeping in a cardboard box somewhere for at least five days.

There was only one thing this guy could be.

Ix grinned from ear to ear.

"Are you a hitchhiker!"

The hitchhiker grinned back and did a mischievous half-bow.

"None hoopier nor froodier."

Zaphod joined in the grinning. A real, live, hitchhiker. Very high on his "cool" scale.

"Cool!" Zaphod intoned. "Have you been sleeping in a cardboard box somewhere for at least five days?"

"Yes. Why do ask?"

"No reason."

"Ah. I see. Well, come on. I've found a good place to hide out until he gets back. His security detail won't like finding any of us standing about in the entry way." the hiker said. "You guys know where your towels are, right?"

Zaphod pointed at Ix's backpack.

"He's got 'em."

"Great. Here, follow me."

Ix and Zaphod followed the hitchhiker. He led them towards the back of the star-limo and into a disused back-up maintenance chamber. He sat down on the smooth, metal floor and Ix and Zaphod copied him.

"My name's Gurvan, by the way."

Zaphod nodded in greeting with both heads.

"My name's Zaphod, but what some people call me is a different story altogether."

Gurvan laughed and imitated Zaphod's nod as close as he could with one less head.

Ix tried his best to give his Betelgeusian name in the language of his birth-planet, stumbled, stuttered, and lisped horribly halfway through it, then decided he wasn't going to be able to say it right this time either. No one would have noticed if he was saying it right or not, but he decided if he couldn't say it right, he wouldn't say it at all.

"My name's Ix."

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, until the star-limo took off again. Zaphod and Ix didn't notice, but Gurvan had. The difference between a moving spacecraft and a spacecraft with a much more stationary nature is subtle, at least to the people on it. Your equilibrium needs to be trained before it can tell if it's moving or not. Unless you go into hyperspace, then your inner ear won't tell you you're moving, your stomach will.

"Ix, Zaphod. Is this your first time hitching? You look real young, but I guess that's a bit relative. For all I know, you could both be forty-two thousand years old and just _look_ pre-teen-ish." he thought for a moment. "That'd come in handy."

"It would, but we're not. He's really twelve, I'm really thirteen."

"Ah. Well, any particular reason you're hitching so young?"

"...we're not hitching..."

"We hope to some day!" Ix interjected.

"We were just waiting for Hotblack Desiato to come back so we could get his attention."

Gurvan looked at them.

"You thought this was Disaster Area's limo?"

"Isn't it?"

"Well...no..."

Ix and both of Zaphod's heads looked at each other.

Gurvan explained about Vendreevold.

"We have to get off this limo! We're not supposed to leave the planet without our parents' permission!" Ix said.

"I wouldn't advise getting off right this second."

"But we have to!"

"Not a good idea."

"Why not?"

"Because it'll be almost instantly lethal. We've already left Betelgeuse 8."

"So we're in space?" Zaphod asked.

"Yeah."

"Cool."

"...Yeah..." Ix agreed.

"So...what do you plan to do about this?" Gurvan asked.

Ix and both of Zaphod's heads looked at each other.

"We don't know." Zaphod said. "Where are we going?"

"We're on Vendreevold's star-limo-"

"The guy my Dad complains about because he makes tax hikes?" Ix asked.

"Probably. And, see, Vend–you know what? Here. Look it up yourselves. You two look like the type who'll have these for themselves one day anyways."

Gurvan went into his pack and produced a compact, rectangular metal thing. It was scuffed, tarnished, and generally way-worn. It had the remnants of a price tag on the back–water stained, sun bleached, peeling and flaking, but visible–that indicated that it had years ago been sold for slightly less than the standard going rate of an _Encyclopedia Galactica_. Most notably, it had "Don't Panic" written in large, friendly letters on the front. Gurvan handed Zaphod and Ix his copy of the _Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy_. They took it, both holding it, by one hand each.

Ix more than Zaphod got an instant sense of partial deja vu. Then he realized why that was.

"Oh! Hey! A real one!"

"Yeah." Gurvan said, "Well, about as real as we are, but who's to say how real we are?"

"Well, I know I at least am real." Zaphod said. "No one could fake being this cool."

Ix looked at the _Guide_. It had far more buttons than the toy he remembered, but putting all three heads together with Zaphod, they managed to figure out how to work it. Surprisingly, it was Zaphod's pushing buttons mostly at random that found them the entry, since it was situated most illogically between the one titled "Arc Welding" and the one titled "Treating Severe Burns" due to a grievous error in alphabetizing. Having found the entry, they read very few facts that you don't already know about Vendreevold.

"So Vendreevold does this on every planet in the star systems he visits?" Ix asked.

That was one of the few facts they you didn't already know.

"Yeah." Gurvan agreed simply.

"So he'll be going to Betelgeuse 9?"

"Yup."

"And so we're going to Betelgeuse 9?"

"Yeah."

"Cool." Zaphod said.

"Yeah..." Ix agreed.

"But I expect you two will eventually be wanted back home."

"Theoretically."

"Ah...well, I guess I can give you a hand with that when we reach the planet."

Some while later, Gurvan was trotting through a dirty spaceport with two boys in tow who's head count totaled three. He'd had Ix and Zaphod get out there towels and tie the narrow end around their necks like a cape so he could pick them out easily in a crowd.

"Hurry up! Come on! Haven't got all day."

They trotted along faster.

Ix and Zaphod were bumped and jostled by all sorts of beings who were the exact kind of unsavory character who hung about in dirty spaceports who they shouldn't associate with for several more years. They heard snippets of unsavory drinking songs of the exact kind they shouldn't be hearing for several more years. Coming from the bars and pubs that lined many of the more hitchhiker-dense areas of the spaceport (like the general area of the slightly squalid traveler hostel), they smelled the exact sort of unsavory drinks they shouldn't be drinking for several more years. Gurvan was familiar with all of these elements to the point where he hardly noticed anymore, but it was all pretty damned new to Zaphod and Ix.

Gurvan was fiddling with a black device, pushing one of a few buttons.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to hitch us a ride, Ix."

"How are you doing that?"

They'd stopped walking. Gurvan was talking to Ix, Ix was being talked to by Gurvan and Zaphod was staring mesmerized by two things: one head by a pawnshop window where he could see not only very shiny, expensive things, but also some magazines with scantily clad alien women, the second head by his own reflection in a large mirror in the window.

"This is the thumb." Gurvan was explaining. "I press buttons depending on what I need. If I need to hail a repair bot for my own ship, I press this. If I want to request to be matter-transferred aboard a ship, I press here. If I want to try and see if I can force a low-flying ship to land, I use this button, but some ships can jam the signal..." he noticed Zaphod staring in the window, grabbed him by the collar and started walking again. "When you're older, kid."

"I'm older than Ix!"

"That's hardly an issue."

They managed to hitch a ride on a ship transporting tonnes of confetti for retail sale by having Gurvan pass Ix and Zaphod off as new forms of android (the passenger limit was one plus the pilot). The confetti-mover holed them up in the back, sitting on heaps of little paper bits cut into festive shapes. They were heading back to the spaceport of Betelgeuse 8. Ix and Zaphod took stock of the situation.

"So." Ix said, "We didn't get to meet Hotblack Desiato. We didn't get to see his limo."

"No, but we got to go see a new planet on a whim. Spaceports are cool."

"I practically live in them." Gurvan put in. His eyes were closed and he was mostly sleeping.

"And we got to be rescued by a hitchhiker. Thanks for that by the way." Zaphod said to him.

"No problem. I'm a frood glad to be of service. Besides, you'd have figured it out eventually. You both look hoopy."

"We are!" said Zaphod, who'd taken Gurvan's hiker-slang into his vocabulary.

"Yeah," said Ix, "But we didn't see Disaster Area and we missed the concert!"

Zaphod nodded mournfully with both heads.

"Are you sure? Sounds like space-lag." Gurvan asked, "Do you have anything still set for your own galactic time zone?"

Zaphod look a small portable game computer out of his coat pocket. He laughed hysterically.

"Ix! Ix! Look! It's still an hour before the show! We're gonna make it! We're gonna see Disaster Area!" he hollered.

Then both shouted, called, vociferated in perfect unison:

"DISASTER AREA! YYYYYYYYY-YES!"

Followed by the slightly hollow smacking noise of their forearms colliding. This action is roughly equivalent to the earth custom known as "high-five".

They did see Disaster Area that night. The sound exploded through several layers of dirt and cement. The vibrations caused everyone within to be covered in white chalk from the cement ceiling. The sound speakers had been turned to their lowest setting. The moon was off-orbit for six weeks.

Though every precaution was taken to ensure some safety for the fans, there was a decibel level that could have taken out several large office blocks if let loose upon the public. At the end of the concert, Ix and Zaphod left exultant but totally deaf. Zaphod deaf in all four ears. This condition lasted about a week.

Oddly enough, no one at the Disaster Area concert noticed the strangely-shaped "insect" that took an a cargo of the tiny bones that had escaped from several fans' ears and taken them to a far away and wholly unplausible planet.

* * *

A/N: Wow...yeah. Sorry again about the delay. And that chapter was very, very...rant-y. Just went off on tangents. A lot of it was written late at night. Suulsa-Krii (the main writer) usually finds it easiest to try to attempt to write in Douglas's style when the rest of the day's already sucked all the commonsense, orderly, rational thinking out through her ears.

Huntress: Not to say she's not always so weird.

Suulsa-Krii: I'll take that as a compliment.

Oh, and I apologize if you found it too early in the story for a "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy has this to say on the subject of..." bit, I sorta did, but I've been dying to write one. I couldn't hold off any longer.

Huntress: I'd like to mention that Suulsa-Krii is solely responsible for the whole thing with the pull-my-finger-joke. You'll notice Douglas never actually did any fart-jokes, so I sort of opposed it...also, only she can be held to blame for those random jabbering bits of random nonsense about logic and the universe being like a balloon and a porcupine, and the part about the ear drums, and the part about Vendreevold.

Suulsa-Krii: Why thank you, Huntress, for giving me credit for all the best parts! ;P

Huntress: Zark off.

Suulsa-Krii: Belgium!

Huntress: ...whoa...

Suulsa-Krii: Sorry.

Anyways, so stay hoopy all you froods! Suulsa-Krii and Huntress out.


End file.
